THE MAKERFIELD TEST

A week this Thursday, on 18th June, the Makerfield by-election takes place.  When the exit poll comes out that night it should be launch time for Andy Burnham.  He could burn up on the ramp with a bang or head towards Downing Street.  One poll gives him a ten point lead.  But maybe Reform-inclined voters are hiding from pollsters how they will vote; Burnham may not be a shoo-in.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister is not going to bow out quietly.  He persevered and survived the Corbynistas to  re-shape the Labour Party and win a spectacular general election victory in 2024.  Still holding over 400 of the 650 parliamentary seats, and after only two years in office, his response is legitimate and understandable – if not in the eyes of all beholders. Some 100 Labour MPs have come out in his support.

But it only takes 81 nominating a challenger to trigger a selection process that would most likely bring Andy Burnham in to land at 10 Downing Street.  And, after the evidence from the recent debacle  in the May local elections, there are at least that number who do not believe Starmer could win the next general election.  Ministers have personally asked him to go and junior Ministers have resigned. 

What is rarely calibrated in all this is future public support for Reform during the next three years whoever is Prime Minister; it may decline.  This becomes more likely as Reform Party leadership gains more exposure.  And such a decline would remove a major reason, but not every one, for removing Keir Starmer.

Two factors are at play: hard evidence of votes cast in the May local elections and the response to these results in the Parliamentary and wider Labour Party.  Public disenchantment with the two main Parties has become such that instant, radical change is now seen by many as needed, demanded and expected of a Prime Minister.  For a variety of reasons, it has not been forthcoming.

It is something of a cliché so say the Conservative Party lost the 2024 election rather than the Labour Party winning it.  The focus of Labour’s election strategy was ruthless, but its percentage of votes  was low, and the right wing vote was divided.   As two years have gone by, the shocking degree of disrepair left by successive Tory governments has emerged: for example in the parlous state of prisons, huge backlogs in the courts, HS2 and defense.  Starmer dwelt on this negligence long enough for the question to be asked what was he doing to remedy it?  He has not presented his answer convincingly.

There are three ways of finding the money to keep the show on the road: printing money, borrowing and taxation.  Printing money leads to inflation.  Inflation raises the cost of living as many people are barely coping.  Desperation leads to civil disorder and instability.

Borrowing is part of the problem not the solution.  Rachel Reeves chose to borrow £10 billion in her first year as Chancellor, and in subsequent years £20 billion.  When Labour took over, national debt stood at 101.3% of GDP, £2.7 trillion.  It rose to £2.9 trillion by the end of 2025 (that equals 3.37 trillion Euros compared to France’s 3.46 trillion, and Spain’s 1.7 trillion).  This enormous sum costs  the UK over £10 billion a month in interest payments.

We are paying investors in 10-year UK bonds 4.88% interest compared with France’s 3.68% and Spain’s 3.5%.  And the bond markets would further punish the UK if  borrowing increased to any degree.  The difference with other countries is a measure of the financial sector’s estimation of  relative stability.  When it comes to perceptions of stability, four Tory Prime Ministers since July 2016 doesn’t help, least of all when this includes a - mercifully brief  -exposure to Lizz Truss’ kamikaze economic policy.

So to pump some money into depressed public services there was mainly taxation, already high.  Notably, Reeves first budget raised capital gains tax from 10% to 18% for lower rate payers and from 20% to 24% for higher.  But it was a 1.2% increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions that generated the fiercest and most sustained reaction.  Investors went on strike, as much ‘holding the State to ransom’ - to use the hallowed phrase - as the junior doctors’ strikes .  No investment, no hiring new staff, no increase in GDP.
These are intractable problems and will remain so whoever is Prime Minister.  Under such constrained circumstances incremental gains across a wide front are the only safe way forward.  

The independent Institute for Government’s verdict on Rachel Reeves first budget in October 2024 was to “welcome signs of a coherent strategy” in it.   But it did not take long for the word ‘Plan’ to take on salvific significance amongst the mass media and opposition Parties.  The Labour Party had, and has, a plan for ‘reconstruction’ but it will take at least a decade to achieve results able to garner electoral advantage in an understandably impatient electorate.  Everyone conveniently forgets Field Marshall Moltke’s adage: “No plan survives the first encounter with the enemy”.  And there are several enemies not least the bond markets, the Hormuz straits, and Trump’s obsession with tariffs. 

The widespread perception in Party and public became that a  cautious, legal minded Prime Minister, indecisive in a job  primarily about taking key decisions, hadn’t got a Plan, and was not the right person to carry it out if he had.  Scrapping the two-child limit on universal credit in 2024,  not popular nationally, was an obvious signal to the Party of his true Labour values, and he muffed it. 
  
Keir Starmer has neither demonstrated Gordon Brown’s economic acumen nor does he have Tony Blair’s political touch, “the hand of history” on his shoulder, the ability to engage people in Party and public alike.   You can no more imagine Starmer speaking of ‘a people’s princess’ than using an expletive in public to describe the  interference from Trump and his courtiers in the UK’s domestic policy.

Starmer’s initial support for Israel’s wars, now wavering, has cost him and the Labour Party dear politically.  But in other respects he has shown a firm hand in international relations at a time when international law is collapsing, Trump is a menace and Putin a clear and present danger.  He is respected as our representative, particularly in Europe where he will get the best deal available for the UK’s future relationships with the EU.  He is widely recognized as a decent man, a talented lawyer, and will fight a civilized campaign to stay in power.

If Burnham pulls off Makerfield and then, as expected, beats Keir Starmer in a Labour leadership contest, it would be a dramatic return to national politics for him.  He will re-enter the “Westminster bubble” that  he set in opposition to his Northern identity and successful role as Mayor of Greater Manchester to define himself.  And he will need “a Plan”.
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The bottom line, though, for Labour members is who best can keep the Trump-lite Reform Party out of Downing Street.  On Thursday 18 June some light will be shed on that question.  On it will hinge who is Prime Minister by the next Labour Party Conference.